I texted both my sons Brady and Shea yesterday morning with a 23-20 prediction of the Ravens beating the Steelers later in the day. They both responded in disagreement and noted that the Steelers just had too many weapons for the Ravens to beat the Steelers on their own home field in Pittsburgh.
Brady even laid the following video on me with a note that said the line “How am I gonna be an optimist about this” made him think of me and my belief in the Ravens. Shea too has a broad streak of optimism in him as he noted “Ravens lose tonight but beat them in playoffs after Jax and before NE to go to Super Bowl.”
As I thought about our three views – trusting optimist (me,) hopeful optimist (Shea,) and outright pessimist (Brady,) it brought to mind some quote I saw somewhere that goes “I am not an optimist but hopefully someday I will be.”
The Ravens ultimately lost to the Steelers 39-38, but the optimist in me is now focusing on Shea’s forward-looking belief that the Ravens can win a game or two left in this season, still make the playoffs and go from there. Here is the video that Brady sent me.
Something else kind of cool happened as I prepared this post. When I snipped the above photo of Flacco, I stashed it on my PC Desktop with the title Balt. I had to smile when it appeared next to the following photo that I also have on my Desktop:
Bart was a big Ravens’ fan also. He passed away 3 years ago today and I continue to miss him even more as the years drag on. The optimist in me believes that we will meet again sometime.